


Welcome back, Detective

by GreenDrinkGoddess



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Breaking my Bensler heart, F/M, Set somewhere in S21, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23650384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenDrinkGoddess/pseuds/GreenDrinkGoddess
Summary: 4 times Liv was angry and 1 time she wasn't.
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Kudos: 26





	Welcome back, Detective

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so it's more three and a half angry and one and a half not. I don't know how I want them to meet so I shamelessly troped it up and here we are. At the moment these are all one shots but if I can think of a good idea I'll run with it.

“Alright Fin, well keep me posted.” Olivia threw the phone down onto her desk and massaged her temples. Tonight was going to be a long one.

She picked up her other phone and shot off a quick text to Noah’s nanny. Turning back to the laptop, she opened the top email, scanned it and started to draft a reply. A soft knock at the door dragged her from her thoughts. 

“One second.” She finished the sentence and looked up, removing her glasses.

At that moment all time stopped for Olivia. She was no longer aware of the chair she was sat on, the desk in front of her or the office around her. Shock was the first response she felt, quickly followed by disbelief, elation, an aching sadness and then anger. Hot, furious anger. Her heart raced, thumping in her ears, her palms began to sweat and she could feel her fingers shaking. Slowly, she placed her glasses on the desk and took a steadying breath. 

~

The squadroom was a mess. Fin was loudly hauling a two-hundred pound perp across the room and into interrogation, Amanda was taking a statement from a young woman at her desk, trying her best to shield her from the chaos, and Kat was updating the incident board with the team’s latest cases. 

“Excuse me, I’m here to see Captain Benson.” The words sounded strange coming from the man’s mouth, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was saying them. Kat looked up from the file in her hand and smiled. She examined the man’s shield, 

“She’s not here just now I’m afraid. She should be,” Kat checked her watch, “about twenty minutes?”

“Is it okay if I wait in her office?” Kat wasn’t sure, the man was NYPD but she didn’t know what the protocol was for letting people into the Captain’s office. She looked across to see if Amanda or Fin were free to ask but both were nowhere to be seen. “We’re old friends.” He added.

Kat was won over by the man’s smile and nodded.

Thirty minutes later Olivia stepped off the elevator. Her laptop bag was slung over one shoulder, her tote on the other and her nose buried in an open case file. Muscle memory took her down the corridor and into the squadroom, where she was skilfully avoided by the officers around her as she made her way towards her office. She was brought out of her thoughts at the last moment by Kat, who jogged up behind her.

“Sorry boss, there’s someone in there. A lieutenant, I forget his name. He said he knew you?” Olivia looked up as Kat spoke and then through her door at the back of a balding head, sat squarely on stocky shoulders.

Her breath caught in her throat but she managed to breathe out an okay to Kat as she turned back to her office, stepped inside and closed the door. Kat stood on the other side for a moment, intrigued but not surprised. She always felt her Captain had an air of mystery around her, and she had heard her fair share of stories about the SVU before her time.

Olivia took a steadying breath and marched to her desk, pointedly ignoring the man sat across from it. She placed her laptop bag on the floor and the tote on top, reaching in to retrieve the sheaf of files from inside.

“Lieutenant? Impressive.” To anyone else the comment sounded like a simple compliment but Elliot heard the acid in her words.

“Not as impressive as Captain.” Olivia smirked, not looking up as she sorted through the files, brought one to the top and flipped it open. She took her glasses out of their case and slid them on, grabbed a black pen from a pot, unscrewed the lid and started making notes on the page. It wasn’t until this point that she finally looked up at her former partner. “What can I do for you Elliot? I’m busy.”

Elliot spread his hands, palms up in surrender. “I thought I should come by and say hi.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow, “Wow, okay.” She circled another word, scribbled a note in a margin and flicked through another few pages. Silence hung between them and Olivia had no plans to break it. After what felt like an age, Elliot coughed quietly. Olivia glanced up over the top of her glasses to find him watching her. With a slight shake of her head she returned to the case file, although she wasn’t taking any of it in. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk.” Olivia threw down her pen and snorted.

“Talk? Okay, I don’t have time for this.” Olivia stood, she could feel her legs shaking and made every conscious effort not to show it. “I have two open rapes, court in a few hours and a meeting with the DA after that.” She gathered the files into her arm and walked towards the door. Opening it, she strode back into the squad room and towards where Kat was making final additions to the incident board. Olivia threw the files down on the table and turned to Kat, gratefully accepting a mug of coffee from her. “What have you got for me Kat?”

The junior officer turned to her Captain, “Well the Brooke Street rape, we’re checking through CCTV an hour either side to see what we can pick up,” she pointed to the timeline in the first column as she spoke and then moved on to the next. She turned back to Olivia to continue but stopped when she noticed Elliot stood behind her. Olivia turned as well.

“You can’t ignore me forever Liv.”

“It’s Captain Benson. I need you out of my squadroom Lieutenant, as you can see,” she indicated the chaotic room behind him, “we’re all very busy.” Olivia turned her back on Elliot and motioned for Kat to continue. After a slight pause she did. Elliot sighed.

“You know where I am, Captain.” The title sounded like a slur and Olivia set her jaw, using all her energy not to react. She heard Elliot’s footsteps behind her and out of the corner of her eye saw him turn the corner out of the squadroom. 

The anger that had been bubbling low in Olivia’s stomach since she had entered her office suddenly rose to the surface. She placed the warm mug on the table beside the stack of files and leant forward on the desk. She was no longer listening to Kat, who was diligently taking her through the third and fourth columns on her incident board. All other thoughts faded away as her mind went back to that afternoon in the precinct, Jenna bleeding in Stabler’s arms, Sister Peg going cold in her own.

Kat had noticed her Captain was no longer listening, her eyes glazed over and staring into the distance. She carried on talking, hoping Olivia would come back to her, but gasped as she saw paper and hot coffee fly across the desk and heard the crash of porcelain against the wall. Brown liquid bled down the painted bricks and the entire room fell silent. Kat stared at her Captain who was now shaking and taking in the mess on the wall, her hand covering her mouth and tears welling in her eyes.

Before Kat could comprehend what had happened, Olivia strode forcefully out of the room. 

~  
Emotions were high. Four different agencies on the scene, all vying for control, and one scared young girl being held hostage.

Olivia was strapping on her vest and checking her weapon when Rollins came over. With arguably the most experience of dealing with child hostages, it had been agreed that she would attempt to talk their perp down. “They’re ready for you Cap, are you?” Olivia nodded. She was escorted into the building and up to the front door.

“Deacon? It’s Captain Benson. You wanted to talk to me?”

“I’ll shoot her, don’t think I won’t cos I will!”

“I’m here to listen to you Deacon, talk to me.” Olivia heard a radio behind her state they had a shot and turned to the officer, shaking her head. “They have the building surrounded Deacon. Talk to me and we can get you both out of there.”

There was silence on the other side of the door and then the sound of the lock clicking open. The door opened and a young man peered out. 

“Benson?” Olivia nodded. The man gestured with his gun for her to come into the apartment. Olivia walked forwards, hands up and gun clearly holstered on her hip. Once inside the man pointed at Olivia’s weapon. “Take that out.” Olivia obliged, emptying the clip and placing it on the coffee table in front of her. Deacon pointed the gun back at the young girl beside him.

“Okay Deacon, I’m here. What can I do for you?” Deacon looked around the apartment, his mind whirring.

“I… I want a helicopter out of here. And a new identity and… and immunity! And I want Eleanor to say she was lying. To the judge.”

“Okay Deacon, I can see what I can do for you but you have to give us something.” Deacon’s eyes flittered around the apartment again. 

“Like what?”

“How about letting Amy go?” Deacon began to shake his head. “You’ll still have me. If you let Amy go, I can see what I can do about getting you the helicopter.”

“And the apology, don’t forget the apology.”

Olivia nodded, “And the apology.” Deacon seemed to think about it and slowly nodded. He loosened his grip on the girl slightly and lowered his gun. “Okay.” 

Olivia turned back to the door and said loudly, “This is Captain Benson, we’re opening the door and allowing Amy to leave. I am staying here with Deacon.” Olivia nodded to Deacon who walked forwards, pointing the gun at Olivia now. He opened the door again and shoved Amy through it. At that moment, with his back turned on Olivia, she crouched, grabbed her ankle gun and shot Deacon in the knee. The rubber bullet hit its target, who groaned in pain and dropped to the floor, the gun skittering away.

Olivia leapt forwards, pushing the gun further away. At the same time, armed officers from outside pushed the door further open and two grabbed Deacon’s arms, restraining him. They pulled him up to his feet and Olivia rose with him. Face to face, she noticed the fluff on Deacon’s chin, the childhood naivety as tears started to fall down his cheeks and realised how young their perp really was. The officers had already handcuffed Deacon so Olivia grabbed his upper arm and marched him past the receding crowd, reading him his rights as she went. On the street she headed for her Sedan, not noticing the melee of people milling around on the street. She was focused on getting Deacon back to the precinct and back in a cell.

Olivia therefore jumped when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, shock coursed through her at the sight of her former partner stood there, in the middle of the road, gold shield glinting on his coat lapel. She was still riding an adrenaline high from the hostage negotiations so she wasn’t surprised when a sudden calmness descended. Everything else was forgotten.

“Elliot.” It was a statement but Elliot could hear the questions behind it.

“Olivia.” He replied. Both took in the changes in each other, the lines around the eyes, forehead, less hair than before, a spark lost. Stood face to face, the eye of an inevitable storm.

They were suddenly interrupted by another officer, who passed a sheet of paper to Olivia and went to grab Deacon from her. She pulled him out of the man’s reach, “Hold up, what’s going on?”

“A warrant for transfer Captain. Mr Smith is now under the custody of Anti-Organised Crime.” Olivia looked back at Elliot, an eyebrow raised. He half shrugged and Olivia glared in response. She looked back down at the warrant and, with no reason to contest it, relinquished Deacon’s arm.

“I didn’t know you were here Liv, I would’ve warned you.” The nickname stung Olivia, it sounded wrong coming from Elliot after all this time.

“Like you warned me about leaving?” Came her acerbic reply. Elliot winced slightly.

“I deserved that.” He tried, jokingly. 

Olivia pushed passed him, “And more.” The calm was gone, white hot anger was coursing through her veins and along with the adrenaline, Olivia wasn’t sure what she would do if she stuck around. She strode over to where Rollins was waiting. “Let’s go, anti-OC has custody now. No point hanging around.”

Amanda knew when not to ask questions but she couldn’t help just one, “Who’s he?” She nodded in Elliot’s direction. Olivia glanced back over her shoulder.

“Nobody.” She marched away, heading back towards her car. Amanda had no choice but to follow.

~  
It was a Tuesday morning when Olivia saw the bulletin. She didn’t usually keep up with the retired officer’s newsletter. Munch had popped up a couple of times with a guest column so she kept an eye out for that, but nothing else interested her much. Later, she couldn’t for the life of her remember why she had carried on scrolling down the email instead of resigning it straight to the recycling bin. But as she came across a feature about officers coming out of retirement, and Elliot’s face loaded in front of her, she felt her heart thud. 

Olivia was interrupted from her thoughts by Fin knocking on her door. “That’s me and Rollins clocking out Liv. We’ve handed off to the day shift, nothing new on the Shaw Street attack and we’ve left Kat chasing CCTV for the Morden case.” Olivia nodded, still taking in the photo in front of her. As Fin was closing the door she called him back.

“Did you know about this?” She turned her laptop around to show Fin the feature. Fin took it in and shook his head.

“No idea.” He stepped forward, “You want me to go talk to him?” Olivia smiled sadly and shook her head.

“Thanks Fin.”

“You know where I am baby girl.” With a wink and sly smile, he was out of the door leaving Olivia to gaze at the photo once more.

~

Today had been hard. Actually, the last week, month even, had been hell on earth. The cases just kept coming - the pressure from above, the DA, her team - it was all eating away at her. On top of that, she felt like she was spending less and less time with Noah as the weeks ran into each other. She was an experienced Detective down, training up a complete Rookie… and the nightmares had started again. 

Olivia checked her watch and swore under her breath. She was half an hour late for movie night with Noah. Grabbing the files on her in tray, she pushed them into her tote along with the laptop and work phones. She took her coat and scarf from the tree and pulled them on as she made her way out of the office. Olivia had her head down, typing out a text for Noah, when she became aware of someone heading towards her. She looked up and felt the breath leave her lungs. Her heart raced and her stomach flipped. She knew she should feel anger but all rational thought left as she reached up and enveloped her former partner in a hug. Her arms wrapped around him, tightening as the embrace went on, and her head rested on his shoulder. Olivia closed her eyes tight and took a steadying breath. The world seemed to melt away then, the noise of the office, the constant to-do list and reminders that raced each other around her head, the worries that she was leading the team to ruin – gone. For the first time in forever, Olivia felt an overwhelming sense of calm. She relaxed into Elliot’s arms, not willing to step away or leave what had always been the safest place she knew.


End file.
